Phil 1301
Genius
Aristotle provided the best foundation for the Theory of Forms. Being a pupil of such a great philosopher like Plato and considering the respect and admiration that Aristotle professed to his mentor, it had to be a challenge to respectfully provide strongest foundations.
Regarding the Theory of Forms, Plato and Aristotle both use their definitions of ‘form’ to defeat their relative problems with knowledge. For both philosophers form is able to categorize all things; books are books because they reflect the form of a book. Nevertheless, Plato and Aristotle’s theories on metaphysical topics of ‘forms’ and what is reality are very dissimilar and completely opposite.
Plato states that reality exists on two specific levels which are, first, the visible world that is made up of sight and sounds and, second, the intelligent world (the world of forms) that gives the visible world its being (Kleinman16). So, for example, the perfect form of a sphere is in this other reality. In our world we have but copies that don't quite hit perfection as a whopper chocolate or a planet. Some people may agree with Plato’s theory due to the fact of having different culture and beliefs. For example some people believe in reincarnation so they think we could have some other life in which they acquired other knowledge; however I am in favor of Aristotle theory because my believe and culture had taught me we only live once. Our main purpose in this life is to develop knowledge; we learn through our life, we are not born knowing everything.
Furthermore according to Brooke Noel Moore and Kenneth Bruder, Plato was not congruent when speaking on public (35). Plato’s incongruences during public speeches make me think that he was not one hundred percent sure about his own theories. Plato believed all abstract ideas had real existence as perfect forms in an immaterial world apart from our physical perceptions. Some of the significant ideas which